January 2013 will see implementation of Taiwan’s “second generation” national health insurance law bringing important changes to the market for prescription medicines in one of Asia’s booming tiger economies. The new drug pricing process will be modified and the importance of health technology assessment (HTA) reaffirmed. The Cross-Strait Co-operation Agreement on Medicine and Public Health Affairs with mainland China might be of even greater significance in the longer term as this potentially leads to progressive mutual recognition of clinical trial results. R&D companies active in Taiwan will then have easier access to the 1.3 billion consumers speaking the same language waiting just across the Strait.

Written with the understandable detail and objectivity you require, Market Access Taiwan provides the answers needed for product introduction and life-cycle management in the sixth-largest market in Asia-Pacific:

- Incomplete separation between prescribing and dispensing and the drug price gap.

- Impact of global budgets on pharmaceutical costs.

- Pay-for-performance incentives for prescribers.

- One of the world’s best environments for rare disease management.

- Generic pricing and its relationship to product quality.

KEY FEATURES

Comprehensive:Focusing on NHI reimbursement pricing but encompassing the IND to the PMS stages.

Detailed:Over 30 tables, figures & case studies. Much not published in English before.

Up-to-date:Based on face-to-face interviews with key market participants and data collection conducted in Taipei during September 2012. Includes brand-new local pharmacoeconomic study checklist.
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Despite strong industry lobbying it now seems unlikely that the 8th round of price reductions following the biennial cycle of price-volume surveys can be avoided in Taiwan, the 6th-largest market for medicines in Asia-Pacific. Cuts are due to take effect in December 2013. The R&D sector proposed and government supported an alternative approach – an annual drug expenditure target (DET) with an industry-wide payback in the event of an overrun.

The matter was supposed to have been decided at September’s meeting of the Department of Health’s Medical Expenditure Negotiating Committee, but no consensus was reached. DET did not resurface for discussion at either MENC’s October or November meeting.

According to local sources, hospital associations – with strong representation on MENC - were fearful of DET giving them less control over their budgets. Industry believes that hospitals would in fact see advantages as DET would create a more stable drug market. Following each round of price cuts, hospitals undertake large scale revisions of their drug inventory. Such changes inconvenience physicians and patients, and necessitate extensive price negotiations by the hospitals with suppliers of replacement products.

Important changes are definitely on the way in Taiwan, however. January 2013 sees implementation of the “second generation” national health insurance law. As a result the new drug pricing process will be modified and the importance of HTA reaffirmed.

The Cross-Strait Co-operation Agreement on Medicine and Public Health Affairs with mainland China might be of even greater significance in the longer term as this potentially leads to progressive mutual recognition of clinical trial results. R&D companies active in Taiwan will then have easier access to the 1.3 billion consumers speaking the same language waiting just across the Strait.

These and many other issues are discussed in a new Justpharmareports’ title, Market Access Taiwan. Based on interviews with key market participants and data collection conducted in Taipei during autumn 2012 it provides the answers companies need for product introduction and life-cycle management in one of Asia’s tiger economies.